Thursday, March 30, 2017

For the "winds of change," I was inspired by From Bob Dylan's Forever Young:

May God bless and keep you always;
May your wishes all come true;
May you always do for others
And let others do for you;
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung:
May you stay forever young:
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous;
May you grow up to be true;
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you;
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong;
May you stay forever young...

May your hands always be busy;
May your feet always be swift;May you have a strong foundationWhen the winds of changes shift;
May your heart always be joyful;
May your song always be sung;
May you stay forever young...

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Today's cat is inspired by a great Twitter item from Josh Birdwell about the start of school: "College has been a hurdle in my learning. Time to stop making it a bigger obstacle than it is & use it to empower me"

College has been a hurdle in my learning. Time to stop making it a bigger obstacle than it is & use it to empower me pic.twitter.com/sFLpLAdmth

Monday, March 20, 2017

This growth cat is inspired by a quote from Carol Dweck's book Mindset: "Only people with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their knowledge." The image comes from Cheezburger. I've written a short essay about this one which you can read below, and I've also crossposted this item at my Anatomy of an Online Course blog.

Pay attention and stretch your knowledge.

The context is a study that Carol Dweck conducted comparing people with traits of a fixed mindset to people with traits of a growth mindset, looking for how people respond to feedback about performance. This is an incredibly important topic for teachers and students, so I will quote that section of the book in full here. This is the kind of finding that reinforces my conviction that grading is one of the biggest problems with traditional schooling: by focusing only on right/wrong instead of feedback for growth, we reinforce the self-limiting habits of the fixed mindset.

You can even see the difference in people’s brain waves. People with both mindsets came into our brain-wave lab at Columbia. As they answered hard questions and got feedback, we were curious about when their brain waves would show them to be interested and attentive.

People with a fixed mindset were only interested when the feedback reflected on their ability. Their brain waves showed them paying close attention when they were told whether their answers were right or wrong. But when they were presented with information that could help them learn, there was no sign of interest. Even when they’d gotten an answer wrong, they were not interested in learning what the right answer was.

Only people with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their knowledge. Only for them was learning a priority.

I'll compare Dweck's experiment to something that happened to me in my first semester of college teaching, something which was a revelation to me and which began my transformation as a writing teacher:

In the Fall of 1999, I was teaching what was for me a large Mythology class (50 students), and the students had turned in a short paper at the beginning of the semester; this was back when I taught in a classroom, before I started teaching online. I knew I could not write extensive comments on that many papers, but at the same time I was dismayed by the quality of the papers: some of the papers were very good but some of them were in pretty bad shape (it was my first class at the University of Oklahoma; previously I had been a graduate student instructor at UC Berkeley).

So, I didn't know what to do, but it seemed like a good opportunity for an experiment. I told the students that they could choose: I had graded the papers and would give them back with the grades on them but no comments, or I would write comments on the papers on the condition that the student then revise the paper — but not for a better grade; it would just be an opportunity to work on their writing in order to improve it.

In that class of 50 students, exactly one student asked me to put comments on the paper so that he could revise it. All the other students simply wanted to get the grade and move on. That little experiment showed me that the students really were focused on the grade and they had come to my class to get a grade; learning was not their primary goal, even though many of them really did need help with their writing and were surely aware of that fact.

Since my own goal really was to help students with their writing, I realized that I needed to do something dramatically different in my classes; to find out more about how I changed my teaching practice completely, see this post: The Shift from Teaching Content to ... Teaching Writers.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

I’ve learned that great feedback creates a roadmap for students; it shows them how far they can go in the mastery of a subject or skill by outlining specific places for improvement or highlighting successful behaviors/techniques. Great feedback pushes students to achieve more and it’s specific in helping them do so.

From "Carol Dweck Says Theory of Educational Mind-Set Is Often Misunderstood" by Goldie Blumenstyk (Chronicle of Higher Education). See more at the Chronicle site (subscription required) or at the Soundcloud podcast. For more cats inspired by Carol Dweck's writings and talks, see the Dweck Collection.

We have programs. They can be relatively short, but boy, we work on them for years, to have all the ingredients where students feel honored and respected by the program. We have exercises so they internalize. We show them how to apply it to their schoolwork. We make them not ashamed to go for help if they need it.

From "Carol Dweck Says Theory of Educational Mind-Set Is Often Misunderstood" by Goldie Blumenstyk (Chronicle of Higher Education). See more at the Chronicle site (subscription required) or at the Soundcloud podcast. For more cats inspired by Carol Dweck's writings and talks, see the Dweck Collection.

Other people go on a praise-the-effort craze. Effort is part of building your abilities, but I find now that many educators are praising effort that’s not effective.

15 years after her graduation from vocal performance, Mealiea opened up to me about the anxiety she experienced while pursuing her music degree, and her journey to rediscovering the joy of performing. “Trying to be that perfect performer took away my joy for what I was doing on stage, and that’s why I stepped away from performing – I didn’t want to completely lose my love of music.”

This cat is inspired by the words of Patricia Miranda, quoted in Carol Dweck's Mindset: When you're lying on your deathbed, one of the cool things to say is "I really explored myself." This sense of urgency was instilled in me when my mom died. If you only go through life doing stuff that's easy, shame on you.

This cat is inspired by Maria Popova's review in Brain Pickings of Janna Malamud Smith, An Absorbing Errand: How Artists and Craftsmen Make Their Way to Mastery

The work grows as our minds (conscious and unconscious) and our bodies would have it grow. Technique may require discipline and set the order of things, apprenticeships may demand periods of subordination, but the imaginative acts that propel the effort are themselves serendipitous. In your garden you may set out to clip the roses, but you notice a weed you want to pull from among the coreopsis, except that first there is a rogue branch to be snipped from the holly shrub—and on and on until dark finally settles, ending your day. An occasional task has to be done just now and just so.

I was inspired to make this cat by the infographic below by Sylvia Duckworth which poses a sharp contrast between school and learning: curiosity is not always a priority in school, but it is essential for learning ... and cats are very curious creatures.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

J. Michael Straczynski quoted in the post: "Never follow somebody else's path; it doesn't work the same way twice for anyone. The path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person to find their own way."

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

If this is the first time you've heard the term "self-compassion," it's important to clarify it's not about believing you're perfect or being complacent. It's about treating yourself as a great coach would--with realistic, flexible expectations that encourage growth--but also with kindness and the understanding that you're an imperfect human being who's programmed for learning as you go, not a robot programmed for perfection.

Sometimes you might be tempted to take the easy way, and sometimes you might even think that difficult IS impossible... but you should try to see what you can do: maybe difficult is not impossible after all! The image is from cheezburger.

The article discusses how you can develop a "feedback habit" so that you can effectively process the feedback you receive, looking for keywords and patterns, so that you can then use the feedback in order to improve your performance.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

I'm not a fan of the faux number (that 2% is meaningless... especially since we are all a mix of these qualities: in some aspects of life I embrace the unknown, but in other aspects of life I play it safe, etc.) — but the list of qualities in the graphic below is useful:

Growth means going for your dreams, having confidence, exploring new things, choosing happiness and fulfillment, getting the most out of life, embracing the unknown and excitement, liking change, living without limits and in abundance, and acting in spite of fear.

When your fixed mindset kicks in, you just feel insecure and want to survive, be like everyone else, just getting by and playing it safe in fear, regretting your dull life, procrastinating and settling for less. They call it the comfort zone, but it doesn't really sound all that comfortable after all, does it?